Chapter 4

On the fifty-seventh day, my companions began to disappear.

The first to go was Borin, the dwarf.

He was a three-hundred-year-old dwarf with his beard braided into two thick plaits, tied with copper rings. He had once taken a fireball from the Demon King for me.

His back had been burned so badly that the skin had split open to lay the bone bare, but he had just grinned and said, "Our bones are tough. They don't burn."

That morning, I knocked on his door.

No one answered.

I pushed it open. The room was empty. The bed was neatly…